Kevyn McPhail

15 Jan 2014

Hello, My Name is Kevyn McPhail.

I am a 4th year architecture student at Carnegie Mellon. I am a huge fabrication buff. I love the process of machining and crafting objects. In addition to using machines, I love making and understanding machines and their processes. I am excited for this class, because I see it as a gateway to create and/or manipulate machines to do my bidding. Just Kidding, but the software aspect of this class will allow me to understand fabrication and machines on a deeper level.

Twitter: @studiobfirm

GitHub: https://github.com/kevyn5902

Speaking of Machines, Here is one I made with two of my friends last year.

DSC_0748

Its called the Solarc. Its a sun simulation table. Basically its and automated turntable and movable light source that cast shadows on a students architectural model to influence their design by  giving them a real world understanding of the effects of the sun on their building. In addition to help with designing and fabricating the table, I coded up the software for it. Since I was in a class that forced me to use python, all the “heavy” computing is done using python, which sends signals via serial to the arduino telling the motors how to move.

Here’s a video!